Ben Martens wrote:
> 
> This is great.  Thank you for all the advice (and I'm always open to more!)
> I just wanted to address the .NET question...
> 
> Chris wrote:
> >> .NET? Cross Platform? I didn't think these could be held in the same
> thought.
> 
> .NET, contrary to what the anti-Microsoft press would lead you to believe,
> IS very cross platform.  That is the beauty of it.  I'm still learning about
> it, but basically you can write in any language.  Those chunks you make from
> different languages can all interact in the same program seemlessly.  This
> is because .NET compiles to an intermediate language.  After the program is
> in that intermediate language, any platform with the .NET framework can run
> it.  Obviously they the Windows one is already working.  I know a Linux port
> is in the works, and I think a Mac one may be finished already(?).  It's
> really very neat technology. As I mentioned, I'm just starting to learn, but
> the bottom half sounds similar to Java.  Except that this actually works.
> Sun had so many chances with Java but screwed them all up and never
> delivered on their promises about true cross-platform, etc... but I don't
> want to start a flame war.
> 
> Thanks again for the help,
> -Ben

Not very nice to write an ultra-polemical text and then say
"But please don't answer".

Today, .NET is mono-platform. Dot. No other OS supports today. Dot.
What other OS will support in the future is unknown and should not
be relied upon.

You can't write in any language. You can write in a lot of .NETted
languages. Yes, they resemble a lot the languages they derived from
(Cobol.NET, ha!), but they're not the same. Important note: you
just can't use an existing program, even if it is written in a
langugage the .NET platform supports: You have to rewrite some parts
(or most?) of its code.

As you said, you're just starting to learn. .NET might well be a
nice platform, but don't take everything Microsoft marketing
tells you for granted. C#.NET, the existing .NET platform and
Windows, and ASP.NET. This is what is working right now, and it's
rather good. The rest of it is still a bit... vaporous.

The part about Java is pure Microsoft-induced non-sense. Java
is not perfectly cross-platform, granted. But it is infinitely
more than .NET. And it works (.NET too).

-- 
Adrien Beau   adr### [at] freefr   http://adrien.beau.free.fr/

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